smoking kills

today our god smoked a lot
just look at those heavy clouds
then he took a massive piss
for nine hundred sixty hours

noah chopped huge planks of wood
did it with his chopping fist
slapped together a wee boat
before the waters could rise

the re’em poked its nose inside
but noah shooed it away
It was crowded & stuffy
re’ems were bigger than blue whales

upset, the re’em craned its neck
& pricked god’s arse with its horn
upset, god smote the re’em back
right up its almighty crack

then the firmament crackled
& the waters subsided
like gurgling down a drain hole
along with the re’em’s remains

noah’s wee boat went aground
atop a big arse mountain
creatures piled out & ran off
scattering every which way

noah then got himself drunk
pitched a tent, slept in the buff
put one son in a tizzy
the others covered his bits

happily ever after
multiply & fill the earth
venerate or freaking else
these our smoking god decreed

as a sign of his good grace
covenant with man & beast
a rainbow was set in clouds
then the gays came & stole it

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

fumes & booms

don’t light a cigarette
in a house of oily rags
if you do, be ready to
extinguish your reeky buns
‘cos methane doesn’t come
only from cross volcanoes
& farting has never been
an insured accident
so, eat way less baked beans
if you really want to live
or better, just stop smoking
go on a jet ski trip instead

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

all that remains

we are born
empty phials for memories
accumulated & preserved
for all time
drop by drop
warm & cold, sweet & bitter
laughter in sorrow & love
fumblers of rhyme

leaving’s never easy
but look, there, the stars
hopeful like our dreams

shade by shade
a unicorn’s funerary wreath
a pallbearer’s rainbow raiment
all is sublime
& then we die
caulked in eternity boxes
blest in rot for posterity
our burial heim

leaving’s never easy
but look, there, the stars
hopeful like our dreams

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2025

weltschmerz

your voice echoes back from yesteryear
as i perch on the edge of hope & fear
once more there’s this pang of you not here
the sun leers through cloud’s shame above
upon grounded white crow & black dove
whose answer for the wrong question needs love

tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens

your hand reaches through the fullness of time
untold happenstance of future clime
dusts sensate shoulder with earthly rhyme
it signals to turn that withered page
to uncloy myself from ferocity’s cage
release sweet sadness & fathomless rage

tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens

now & again when i turn to look back
i still see you not here & your hand’s slack
still you’re part of me on this doomen track
in these memories of you i abide
what remains of you the urn at my side
with no hope of turning time’s avian tide

tar soap scent atween the birches
your shadow no longer afore me
just othering eyes from briar to fens

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024

communion seed

he gave me a shabby old pouch
filled up with pomegranate seeds
& i wondered what this could mean
how fertile he wished me to be

he showed how many seeds i got
as much as happy days are left
& i swore we’d marry right there
no priest nor church ‘neath nude sun’s haze

he squeezed a seed ‘tween two fingers
& the juice sprinkled his palm red
like virginity on crisp sheets
i did not even hesitate

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2024